The ban on “Aarakshan” (Reservations), director Prakash Jha’s movie about affirmative action in education, has spread to three states, with Andhra Pradesh joining Uttar Pradesh and Punjab to nix the film. Mr. Jha is appealing to the Supreme Court to rule against the bans.

Courtesy Prakash Jha Productions

The film, ‘Aarakshan’, is set against the backdrop of a 2008 Supreme Court decision upholding a law expanding India’s caste-based affirmative action

On his blog, actor Amitabh Bachchan, who plays the lead as principal of a small town private university who faces a backlash after his comments about reservations appear in a newspaper, called the reaction to the movie “fascist.”

The film is set against the backdrop of a 2008 Supreme Court decision upholding a law expanding India’s caste-based affirmative action program to 49.5% of seats in public universities. The term “reservations” refers to the share of university spots that are set aside for students of specific caste groups. Until the expansion, 22.5% of seats were reserved for Dalit students, as members of groups considered “untouchable” under the caste-system are now known.

Pointing to remarks made by the movie’s upper-caste characters, some groups have said it is prejudiced against Dalits. Movie-goers in states where the film isn’t banned (yet) can make up their own minds about that. Here’s what critics had to say about the movie:

Cable news channelNDTV’s Saibal Chatterjee found the film a little disappointing, giving it two-and-a-half out of five stars.

“Prakash Jha’s highly anticipated film isn’t really what the title might suggest: a sledgehammer drama about a simmering political issue that has never been addressed before in a mainstream Hindi film,” wrote Mr. Chatterjee. “Instead, it’s a rather safe, superficial and simplistic take on an extremely complex theme. The film lets off steam, and generates some smoke, but the fire is missing.”

Mr. Chatterjee also didn’t like the clear demarcations between hero and villain in the movie, and thought the second half seemed like an entirely different movie.

“The title is forgotten and ‘Aarakshan’ dives into a plot woven around the ageing protagonist’s battle to rescue his students from the clutches of the greedy men who have turned education into a money-spinning racket,” he says.

News website Daily Bhaskar said Mr. Bachchan’s performance was “outstanding” but agreed that the second half of the film was weak.

“The first half is quite gripping, but the narrative loses its grips by the end of the story,” said the site, saying the movie needed better editing. “Nevertheless the story takes you through a roller coaster ride with a high dose of drama.”

Daily Bhaskar gave the movie three stars out of five.

On the entertainment site Glamsham, Pankjaj Sabnani said the movie was long-winded.

“Prakash Jha’s ‘Aarakshan,’ has its heart at the right place,” wrote Mr. Sabnani. “But it takes so long to convey its message that you run out of patience.”

“While Bachchan is a strong reason to watch, ‘Aarakshan,’ pretty much everything else around him falls apart,” said Mr. Guha. “The film is long. And verbose.”

He added, “Co-writers Prakash Jha and Anjum Rajabali enforce every idea, every thought that the story toils to communicate over and over again.”

The New York Times’s Rachel Saltz noted that Mr. Jha likes to turn political issues into “pulpy” epics.

“Nothing less than India’s soul is at stake in Prakash Jha’s ‘Aarakshan,’ a Hindi movie about the battle — as intense as any gang war — between a righteous teacher and the hucksters who would make education a commodity available only to the privileged,” she wrote.

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